Our Mission & Values
QUALITY • CHOICE • RESPECT • INCLUSION • CREATIVITY • EFFICIENCY • PARTNERSHIP • LEADERSHIP • COMMUNICATION • EDUCATION • CONTINUITY • GROWTH
Our Mission is to help people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and their families, by providing a lifetime of high-quality services, family support, and advocacy.
We work hard to provide the kind of individualized services that can really help make a difference to an adult… to a child… to a family. Services provided are designed to maximize choice and to support people as they build quality lives within the St. Louis community.
View our 2009-2013 Strategic Plan.
Accreditation
The St. Louis Arc is recognized as a quality leader among professional agencies.
Since 1983, St. Louis Arc has been accredited by The Council on Quality and Leadership 
(CQL), an international not-for-profit organization dedicated to being a leader for excellence in the definition, measurement and evaluation of personal and community quality of life for people with disabilities. In 2004 and again in 2008, St. Louis Arc became one of only a handful of organizations in the world to be awarded a Value-Added accreditation from CQL.
People First Philosophy
The people and families of the St. Louis Arc believe that the language we use to talk about disability has an impact on how we view and interact with people who are affected by disability. Because of that belief, the St. Louis Arc emphasizes the use of “People-First Language” in all references to the people and families we serve.
People-First Language helps us to remember that the people we support are people who have individual interests, needs and desires—and who are never to be reduced to the sum of their diagnoses or conditions. It is a philosophy that underlies all of our services.
To learn more about People-First Language, you may want to read this hand out from the Missouri Parent Act, or watch this Arc of Northern Virginia/Arc of Virginia web video about how the language we use impacts people and families. WATCH VIDEO